Hush, Little Baby

by Shane Dunphy

  ‘You can see why he’s here.’

  ‘Indeed. He mentioned them, a group of people he seems convinced want to hurt him.’

  ‘Paranoid delusions. Very common with schizophrenics. Someone with Clive’s condition can watch the news and become convinced that every single item is actually about them.’

  ‘But he seems to be genuinely terrified.’

  ‘Clive is hearing voices in his head telling him to hurt himself. He sees demons and their minions everywhere he looks. Sometimes, he thinks that there is a devil inside him trying to rip its way out through his stomach. Of course he’s afraid.’

  ‘I’d like to see him again. I’ll bring his sister the next time, though. Maybe that will prove to him that I’m a good guy.’

  The doctor laughed and stepped gingerly on to the grass. It was as if it had taken an effort for him to leave the confines of the hospital. ‘I think that would be best. We could do with the help. To be honest, the more people we have on the case, the better. There isn’t anyone on staff here who specializes in childhood psychiatric disorders.’

  ‘Well, it’s not my speciality either.’

  ‘You work with children, at least, which puts you at more of an advantage than the rest of us.’

  He stood a little away with his back to me, looking at an ornamental pond set in the lawn to our left, covered now in a thick sheet of ice, silver bulrushes standing like sentries here and there. A rickety metal fence surrounded it, apparently to stop patients flinging themselves in. It didn’t look as if it would provide much of a challenge to a determinedly suicidal individual, but I kept the opinion to myself.

  ‘Do you like working here, Doctor?’

  ‘What?’ He turned back to me, seemingly disturbed from private thoughts. ‘I … I don’t really know. I’ve been here since I finished university. Did my internship here too. I suppose I like it well enough. There are staff members who’ve worked here far longer than I have.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I was at a retirement party last month for a nurse who’d practised here for fifty years.’

  ‘That’s quite an achievement.’

  ‘It certainly is.’ He paused, lost in his thoughts again. ‘She booked herself in as a patient two weeks ago. Cited “creeping insanity” as her disorder. There’s no such thing, of course.’

  ‘Retirement obviously didn’t suit her.’

  ‘No.’

  A flock of lapwings came in to feed on the crusted mud around the lake, their plaintive pee-wit cries punctuating the silence.

  ‘Could we work towards getting Clive’s medication lowered?’ I asked after a while.

  ‘I don’t think that would be wise just at the moment. The drugs are all that’s stopping him from imploding.’

  ‘I know that, but I think they’re also stopping him from healing. The chemicals are creating a barrier between his consciousness and whatever happened to cause the problem in the first place. We can’t help him if we can’t get to that cause.’

  ‘Shane, there is no real cause for schizophrenia. It just … happens.’

  ‘Mmm. I accept that, but just suppose, for a moment, that there’s something more to this. That perhaps Clive experienced something that scared him witless, something so awful he just can’t countenance it. Then his mother, whom he worshipped, died, and the combined effect was a complete breakdown.’

  ‘You’re suggesting a stress-related condition?’

  ‘Yes. Very severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.’

  He hurned to look at me, his hands deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold. ‘Your entire premise hangs on Clive’s claims that he was abused. There is absolutely no evidence to support that. I don’t know that I’m willing to adjust our method of treatment on a hunch.’

  ‘I’ve worked with a lot of children who’ve been abused, Doctor. I agree that Clive’s reaction is extreme, but it’s not that far removed from what I’ve seen in other cases.’

  Dr Fleming walked back to the door of his domain and stood for a moment, contemplating his shoes. ‘I’ll tell you what. Come back with Roberta. Let him see you’re not a monster. Befriend him – I think what he needs more than anything else is a friend. And then we’ll see. My job is to heal. If you can facilitate that healing, I’ll go along with you.’ He began to close the door and then stopped. ‘You know, part of me hopes you’re right, because it means that maybe we can help Clive. But there’s a big part of me that wonders what exactly could scare a child so much they basically go mad?’

  He closed the door, returning to sweltering corridors and patients with haunted eyes. I buttoned up my coat, flung my scarf around my neck and walked to my car, followed by the cry of lapwings all the way.

  3

  I met Marian, a colleague of mine from the Trust, for lunch in a small Italian restaurant in the city centre. She was already seated when I arrived, a soft-featured, pretty woman in her early thirties with short blonde hair. Using Dunleavy House – or ‘Last Ditch House’, as the staff tended to call it – as a base of operations meant that we saw each other at the fortnightly team meetings but seldom in between. It wasn’t that we didn’t like one another; we were just so busy and involved with our individual caseloads, there was little time left for socializing. An invitation to lunch, therefore, was unusual, and this one especially so, as the next team meeting was scheduled for the following day. Whatever it was that Marian had on her mind, it obviously couldn’t wait.

  I ordered minestrone soup, a basket of breads and coffee.

  ‘So why the invitation?’ I asked as she poured me a glass of water from a carafe. ‘I am, of course, flattered, but there’s got to be a catch.’

  ‘I don’t see why a girl can’t ask a guy out for lunch without there having to be an ulterior motive,’ she said with a smile. She was from Limerick, and her accent was thick, though not unpleasant.

  ‘But there is one, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  My soup and her salad arrived, and we waited while Parmesan cheese and black pepper were offered and applied. When the waiters had left us, Marian pulled a file from a bag at her feet. ‘How much of a caseload have you got at the moment?’

  ‘I’m fairly free, as it happens, for the first time since the summer. I have two cases on, a third I’m sort of partially involved with, and Ben tells me he has something else pencilled in, but we’re discussing it at the meeting tomorrow. What are you trying to pawn off on me?’

  ‘You’ll thank me, I swear. This is a really easy case – nothing heavy-duty or hardcore. You’ll have it wrapped up in no time.’

  ‘So why pass it my way instead of finishing it up yourself ?’

  She mopped up a dollop of dressing with some bread and took a sip of water. ‘I can’t. I’ve got two cases at absolute crisis point. One’s about to go supernova as we speak. Ben bounced this one my way this morning, and, it turns out, when I make a few calls, that there absolutely has to be a visit this afternoon, or seven different kinds of shit will hit the fan. Only, see, I have got to be in court, because we’re going for an emergency care order on my supernova case, and if I’m not there, it’ll be adjourned for the second time, which would be bad, take my word for it. I really, really need for you to do me a favour on this one, Shane.’

  I took a sip of coffee. The tribulations of my morning visit to St Vitus’s seemed far away now. I liked Marian, and the caffeine and soup had me feeling warm and at ease. I could help her out. Why not? I could do with an easy case for a change.

  ‘Have you discussed this with Ben? I mean, if he only just allocated it to you this morning –’

  ‘I rang him as soon as I’d spoken to Gertrude – she’s the mother of the family involved. He suggested I talk to you about it.’

  I pulled the file over to my side of the table. ‘Well, let’s have the lowdown, then. What am I taking on?’

  ‘Thank you so much. I owe you one, I swear.’

  ‘It had better be as
much of a breeze as you say, or I will be royally pissed.’

  ‘It is, guaranteed. Patrick and Bethany, aged twelve and ten years. They’re being fostered by Gertrude and Percy Bassett. The kids have been in foster care with them for the past seven years. They’ve never been in any other placement, in fact, and have had no contact with their family of origin during that time. They actually use the Bassetts’ name, which as you know is not the norm in fostering cases. Patrick is doing well at school, and he’s a whizz at sports. Bethany is the most beautiful, sweet-natured little girl you’ve ever set eyes on.’

  I flipped open the file and looked at the photo tacked on to the inside cover. Patrick was a strong-featured, if not handsome, boy, gazing morosely at the camera. Bethany was a heart-breakingly pretty child with blonde ringlets and a ready smile.

  ‘You could be describing the fucking Waltons, Marian. Why, pray tell, is an agency that deals only with children in extremis involved with this family?’

  ‘The Health Executive, which placed the kids with the Bassetts, contacted us. It seems the placement is about to break down, and they’ve been powerless to do anything about it. Several social workers and a child psychologist have been involved, all to no avail. So they called us as a last resort.’

  ‘As is their wont. And the cause of this impending disaster?’

  ‘Gertrude claims that Patrick has become unmanageable. He’s been going to football practice and not coming home until hours after he’s supposed to. He’s become verbally abusive. There has even been an incident of physical aggression. She says that unless he’s pulled back into line, he’s out.’

  ‘But not the little girl?’

  ‘No. Bethany is an angel, apparently.’

  I pushed my soup bowl aside and gestured for more coffee. ‘You’ve spoken to Mrs Bassett, then?’

  Marian nodded. ‘This morning.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Hard to tell. She seemed a little hysterical. What struck me was that the list of complaints about Patrick … well … they just didn’t seem that bad. I mean, we deal with all sorts of genuinely messed-up kids, right? We’ve both seen some kids really going off the rails. The reason Gertrude Bassett absolutely has to see someone today, believe it or not, is that Patrick went to his swimming lesson last night and didn’t come back until nine o’clock.’

  ‘What time was he supposed to be in at?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s dark by that time. A mother would worry.’

  ‘There’s a bus stop right outside their front door. And – get this – he rang her and told her he was going to be late and where he was going!’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to the social worker who was on the case – Hugh Rosney. You know him?’

  ‘Yeah, I know Hugh.’

  ‘He’s worked with the Bassetts for the past three years, and he’s at his wits’ end with them. Gertrude, he says, is totally unreasonable. She has it in for Patrick and won’t see sense.’

  ‘And why do you think she’d be any more willing to listen to me than to Hugh?’

  ‘A fresh face?’ Marian asked sheepishly.

  ‘I’ll visit and see what I can do. If it becomes high maintenance, I’ll be calling on you for back-up, okay?’

  She grinned, leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. ‘Deal. I knew you’d take it.’

  ‘I’m a pushover, you mean.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have chosen that word, but …’

  ‘Why don’t you quit while you’re ahead?’ I asked her as I nodded at the waiter for the bill. ‘Lunch is on you, by the way.’

  The Bassetts lived in a Georgian house on a crescent-shaped street just off the main city thoroughfare, near the People’s Park. I knew from their file that Gertrude, the mother, was a homemaker, while Percy, her husband, worked for the city council. She met me at the door. The woman was wide and swarthy, with tightly permed hair of a colour probably not found in nature. She brought me into a lobby, a small room that was decorated with wallpaper that set my teeth on edge in its garishness – it was kind of a brown and orange zigzag that was breathtaking in all the wrong ways. An ornate coat and hat stand adorned the corner, beside a pot plant that seemed to be in some way related to the Triffids. I gave it a wide berth for safety’s sake.

  ‘Ah, you’re the young man they’ve sent to sort Patrick out,’ she said, a smug smile playing on her flat features.

  ‘I’m here to talk to you and your family,’ I said, handing her my coat and scarf. ‘It doesn’t really help to apportion blame before we begin. These things are often no one’s fault. Sometimes it’s just a matter of learning to look at the situation in a different way.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, laughing, a peculiar little snigger deep in her throat, ‘if you can get Patrick to see he’s in the wrong, fair play to you. He’s a very stubborn lad, is our Patrick. I think it comes from his genes, you know. It’s in his blood. He never learned it here, that’s for sure.’

  Before I could express my unhappiness with what she had just said, Gertrude pushed open a door behind her and ushered me into another room. The look in this chamber seemed to be turn-of-the-century French bordello chic: deep-pile burgundy carpets, prints by Toulouse-Lautrec on the walls, an old upright piano in the corner. I expected her to offer me a glass of absinthe.

  ‘I’ll get the others. You make yourself comfortable,’ Gertrude said, and stumped out a door to the rear.

  Five totally impractical metal-framed chairs with electric-pink frilly cushions had been arranged in a circle in the centre of the room, so I sat on one and tried to relax while I waited for her to return. I discovered after a second that whatever the chairs’ designers had in mind for their creations, being sat on was not part of the plan. I stood up and paced instead. The room was certainly spacious, with a large picture window looking out on a big back garden that was a remarkable sight to behold. The first thing I noticed was an alarming variety of garden gnomes, all engaged in different activities: fishing, digging, pushing wheelbarrows and other such gnomish pastimes. My eye was then drawn to about a dozen faux Greek statues, each with one limb or another missing, of course. There was also a finicky looking rock feature with wooden robins and an eagle (which someone had decided to paint bright blue and red) perched on it. And in the centre of the entire bizarre panoply, the pièce de résistance: a monstrous cactus that would have looked right at home with The Man With No Name standing beneath it and striking a match against it to light his cheroot. It appeared utterly out of sync here, dusted as it was with the light snowfall the city had just experienced. A small path made from lime-green paving stones wove in and out of the strange porcelain and plasterwork figures. I could imagine that the children would have found it all kind of fun at first, but would soon have learned that it was not a space mapped out with play in mind. The sort of person who created this garden was the type who collected troll figurines, with all their outfits and accessories, and left them in their boxes.

  Voices interrupted my thoughts, and I turned to see Gertrude leading two children into the room, followed by a small bald man with a fluff of white hair around his ears.

  ‘Percy Bassett,’ the man said, walking right up and shaking my hand nervously. He sat on one of the chairs and seemed to zone out, staring intensely at the floor.

  ‘This is Patrick.’ The boy was pushed towards me. I extended my hand, which he took limply.

  ‘I’m happy to meet you, Patrick. My name is Shane –’

  ‘I know. Mother told me.’ His tone was dull and antagonistic. He had clearly been told that I was going to give him a hard time.

  ‘Well, it’s good to be prepared,’ I said, smiling. ‘And you must be Bethany.’

  The girl stepped up and took my hand. Bethany was indeed a beautiful child. She wore a flouncy dress, probably chosen by Gertrude. It was far too light for the weather and totally out of fashion, but then she had the radiant presence to make it look natural and pretty. ‘We�
��re very pleased to have you as our guest,’ the girl said. ‘May I offer you some tea?’ This was obviously rehearsed, designed to make Bethany seem the perfect daughter.

  ‘No, thank you. Maybe later. Let’s all sit, and get started.’

  I perched on the edge of one of the ridiculous seats and waited for everyone to do likewise – Percy did not move, just sat examining the pile in the carpet as if his life depended on it.

  ‘Now,’ I said, ‘what I’m going to do is called family mediation, but it’s really just a discussion. To make it work as well as possible, there are some basic rules. Everyone gets to talk, no one can interrupt, and there can be no name calling, shouting or rudeness. If you don’t like what someone else has to say, you wait until they’re finished, and then you get to respond, but you can’t be mad about it. Part of what we’re doing here is respecting one another’s feelings. So’ – I pulled a piece of pink amethyst from my pocket (‘Ooo, pretty,’ Bethany said) – ‘this is a piece of crystal. It’s a coloured stone, really. The rule is that while you’re holding it, you have the right to speak, and no one else in the group can butt in or shout you down. When you’re finished, the next person who wants to speak gets the stone, and it goes on like that. You ask for the stone by raising your hand, and if more than one person wants to talk, I’ll decide who gets to speak. I know that’s not fair, but I’m kind of the outside person here, and I’m neutral. The last rule is that whatever is said within this circle stays here. If one of you says something that causes pain or upset to someone else, and you more than likely will, it is not discussed or gone back over once the session has finished. We leave all the hurt and the annoyance within these five chairs. Once the chairs are taken away and the circle broken, the unhappiness goes with it. Is everyone in agreement?’